


Maybe It's Kind of Worth It After All

by katmarajade



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Genderbending, Prom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1324816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katmarajade/pseuds/katmarajade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prom is overrated, Hikaru has always thought so.  It's overrated, expensive, full of pointless pomp and circumstance, and the idea of wearing one of those horrific dresses makes her want to gag.  Hikaru thought that once she graduated high school without ever attending a prom that she was in the clear, but that was before she met Pavla.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe It's Kind of Worth It After All

Prom is overrated, Hikaru has always thought so. It's overrated, expensive, full of pointless pomp and circumstance, and the idea of wearing one of those horrific dresses makes her want to gag. Hikaru thought that once she graduated high school without ever attending a prom that she was in the clear, but that was before she met Pavla.

Pavla's a year younger, a senior now, and Hikaru can tell that she wants to go. She hasn't said it in so many words, but Hikaru can tell. Pavla gets this starry-eyed, longing look on her face when they walk by the formal wear shop near Hikaru's apartment and has made casual asides about how her friends at school are finding ways to cut costs and how it's not as unreasonably priced as she'd always thought.

And that is how Hikaru finds herself, a year out of high school, (when such things are supposed to be over) getting sweaty palms as she asks a pretty girl to the prom. She doesn't know why she gets nervous, because Pavla would never laugh at her and Hikaru is almost positive that she'd never say no to the idea of getting dolled up in a fluffy pink party dress and fancy high-heeled shoes and dancing awkwardly in a crepe-paper-draped gymnasium.

Committing to the whole ridiculous charade, Hikaru begs her brother-in-law to lend her his car, a shiny red Camaro. She buys a pair of nice black pants and her sister lends her a white blouse and even shows her how to iron it. She even wears a bra. (Her mother would be so proud).

She puts a lot of thought into the corsage, which she makes herself during slow hours at the little local flower shop where she works. With painstaking care, Hikaru chooses the prettiest blossoms she can find, one perfect white gardenia and three tiny pale pink rosebuds, around which she weaves a pink ribbon. (She knows Pavla well enough to know that there's no way that the dress will be anything other than pink.) Gardenias are not the easiest flower to put in a corsage, but they're Pavla's favorite. So Hikaru uses deft fingers to make sure that she doesn't handle the delicate, easily-bruised petals.

She still thinks it's overrated: the tickets that are printed on glittery blue paper, the stress, the too many expensive details, the wearing of a bra, the hype …

But when Pavla walks down the staircase wearing the most ridiculous puffy pink dress that Hikaru has ever laid eyes on, it takes her breath away. The dress is enormous and covered in layer after layer of sparkling pink tulle. It should make Pavla look like a three-year-old in a ballerina princess costume, but somehow it doesn't. Instead, Pavla has never looked more beautiful.

They drive around in the red Camaro that Hikaru managed to beg off of her brother-in-law and eat chicken tacos and strawberry milkshakes from a drive-thru. Hikaru can't stop looking at Pavla, who has made up her eyes like Hikaru's sisters always do. It makes Pavla's green eyes look even brighter and wider and gives Hikaru a weird, twisty feeling in her belly. And Hikaru almost drives them into a lamppost once, because she's so distracted by how shiny and kissable Pavla's lips look, painted with strawberry-colored gloss.

They only spend about an hour at the dance, most of which is spent on the edges of the gym sneaking secret kisses and dizzy gazes, because Hikaru can't dance. She lets Pavla drag her onto the floor for two dances, both of which she spends blushing and awkwardly shuffling her feet. Pavla doesn't seem to care though and alternates between giving Hikaru adoring looks and resting her head on Hikaru's shoulder. They leave early, not really caring about sampling the electric blue punch that has stars made out of pineapple floating in it or which one of Pavla's silly classmates will get a rhinestone-covered tiara.

When Pavla whispers soft and lovely thank yous into her ear as they stand on Pavla's front porch and kisses her good night, Hikaru thinks that she might understand why people get so crazy about prom. It's still stupid and expensive and silly and overrated, but as she stumbles off of Pavla's porch with her lips tingling, Hikaru can't help but think that maybe (just maybe) it's all a little magical. And when she glances up at Pavla's lace-curtained window to see Pavla waving down at her and blowing her a kiss, she thinks that it's kind of worth it after all. 


End file.
